Thursday, August 02, 2007

If You Talk Straight, but No One Hears It...

The John McCain campaign has fallen on tough times. McCain travels commercial without a large entourage of aides or press. He carries his own bags, but seems unencumbered when it comes to engaging the few who do turn out for his townhall stops. I read this article with a tinge of sadness for him, but, to my own surprise, more admiration than pity.

In marathon campaigns, there are the middle miles where crowds are small or nonexistent and the only voices of encouragement are in your own head. There is an intrinsic dignity to a fighter who keeps fighting when he's likely beaten [think: "Cool Hand Luke" or "Rocky"]. The scrappiness that carried McCain through many battles is still on display. It's too early to say he's out. As he continues to trudge on, I take note and watch in admiration for the man.

2 Comments:

I too feel some sorrow at seeing the sad state to which Mr. McCaine has come. It was even more saddening to see this fairly moderate Republican start leaning far to the right in order to pick up primary votes.

The Republican Party has gone way, way to the right and they will see the results in 2008 when the American public does to them the same thing it did to the Democrats when they went too far to the left in 1972.

McCain broke in the 2000 race when he, his service to the country, his, wife and his children were disgustingly smeared in SC by Bush and his thugs. Rudy and Pataki also made it difficult to even get on the ticket in NY. Then they smeared him saying his sister died of cancer but he won't support cancer research (lie).

He shifted right to please the party and lost his supporters mostly moderates, progressives, and independents. He also had gained support from young voters with his straight talk express. But he gained nothing from the right because they'll never trust him.